Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Vegan Breakfast & Lunch on a Carnival Cruise

I'm finally back from my Carnival cruise from New Orleans to Cozumel, Mexico. Though I was a little worried about finding vegan food on the ship, I barely touched the Larabars, Artisana nut butter go-packs, and rice cakes that I brought for back-up. Veggie food was everywhere!! The breakfast buffet offered plenty of early mornin' options. Several on-board restaurants catered to vegetarians, and the chef in the Paris Dining Room whipped me up special vegan meals every night. I even found delicious (and very carb-tastic) vegan food in Mexico!

Needless to say, I'll be breaking my trip photos up into several Vegan Mofo posts. I hope these posts over the next few days can be a resource to any other vegans researching food options on Carnival cruise lines. I know other people's blogs (and the PPK, especially from Great Garbonzo!) were a great help to me! I'll start tonight with a post on breakfast and lunch options on the Carnival Triumph (that was the name of our ship).

But first, here's a view from the top deck of the Triumph on day one before we set sail from New Orleans. You can see the skyline in the background (and yes, that is a waterslide in the foreground):

We set sail around 5 p.m. on Thursday afternoon. I had a lovely dinner in the Paris Dining Room that night, but more on that in a later post. By bedtime Thursday night, we were still in the Mississippi River. But I woke up on Friday morning to see this view from our cabin balcony. No land in sight!

My parents and I headed down to the Lido Deck for breakfast buffet. I wasn't sure if I'd find anything to eat, but I managed to pile plenty onto my plate — fried potatoes, grits and salsa, and whole wheat bread with peanut butter and jelly:

The Triumph has several little food counters for lunch options, and on Friday, I opted to try the Hong Kong Noodle Company. They were offering this Fried Tofu with Hearts of Palm and rice. The dish was delicious, but they were a little skimpy on the tofu. The food server guy only gave me three pieces!

Luckily, there was a giant salad bar on Lido Deck, so I filled my belly with this "everything salad":

I'll tell y'all all about Friday's dinner in tomorrow's post. But here's a shot of Saturday's breakfast from the buffet — thinly sliced fried potatoes (better than the ones on Friday), fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, oats with PB and jelly, and a bowl of melon. FYI: That's my dad's milk and my mom's eggs in the background.

Amazingly, I was still hungry in time for Saturday's lunch in Mexico. But I'll share my Mexican eats in a later post. I really want this one to focus on breakfast and lunch options on the boat.

We decided to forgo the breakfast buffet on Sunday in favor of a mornin' meal in the Paris Dining Room. You order off a menu in the dining room, so I picked orange and grapefruit sections (not pictured), tomato juice (not pictured), and hash browns:

I also ordered a bagel with guava jelly:

Since my meal wasn't as large as the buffet breakfast, I was hungry again by 11 a.m. My parents and I went through the line at the Coney Island Grille counter on Lido Deck, where I found this delicious Garden Burger with Fries:

You got to choose your own toppings, so I piled my patty with sauteed mushrooms and onions, ketchup, mustard, and relish.

Later on Saturday afternoon, I was hungry again. Something about having unlimited access to food makes me hungry all the time! So I stopped by the sushi bar for a Spinach Roll with Green Apple Sauce, Cucumber Salad, and the fixins:

We ate at the buffet again on Sunday morning, but my plate looked pretty similar to Friday morning's plate, so I didn't take a picture.

Well, that's it for breakfast and lunch. Not bad, huh? Granted, I didn't inquire as to the vegan-ness of the burger (I call those "don't ask, don't tell" burgers....horrible military policy but good policy for eating out as a vegan) or the breakfast potatoes. I believe one should be pretty adaptable when eating out. You don't want to turn people off of veganism by making it look hard. But that's just me. A more militant vegan might have had to ask a few more questions.

Anyway, I'll be back tomorrow night with a full report on eating vegan dinner on a Carnival cruise ship.

Having a toppings option for veggie burgers totally makes it deluxe! I play don't ask don't tell with burgers and bread sometimes too, when it's the only option. With potatoes I usually ask, because I'm afraid they'll come swimming with butter! Looking forward to the rest of your cruise posts.

Yay!!!! Glad you're back and I'm so happy that you had an awesome trip with lots to eat. I can't wait to hear about your adventures.

I was just reading about the Carnival boat that got stuck at sea (fire in the engine room or something like that). They shipped in tins of Spam (http://preview.tinyurl.com/25lcdqu) for the passengers. OMG, I can't (JUST CAN'T) imagine how awful it would have been, as a vegan, to be on that ship. I think I would fast for a few days before diving into a can of Spam.

I just want to be the third or fourth person to also say that I love how honest you are about your "don't ask, don't tell" policy - I was like that about soups and pie crusts in the earliest days of being vegetarian. And since I started my blog, I've realized how hard it can be to get a straight answer from kitchen staff about whether a burger is vegan or not (and do they even consider the bun it's on, or just the patty?), and whether or not you can trust that answer, if you bother to ask!

Wow....the stuff actually looks pretty good! And unlimited access? That would be a bad move for me :) I never really thought cruises had much veggie food, but it looks like Carnival has been pretty good to you!

hey girl, this your moms friend phyllis. I'm so happy ya'll had a great cruise. maybe next year you can go with betty , your mom and me on a cruise. that would be so much fun. keep the pictures coming , you have some of the family post them. phyllis